Naomi Watts Finds Trouble, So You Don’t Have To

Naomi Watts is no shrinking violet onscreen, having proved her mettle against a raging gorilla in “King Kong,” a deadly videotape in “The Ring,” and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in “The Impossible.” Now, in “The Book of Henry,” out Friday, June 16, she’s battling wits with a gifted 11-year-old.

As Susan Carpenter, Ms. Watts plays a role she knows well: a mother, now single, of two boys — the precocious Henry (Jaeden Lieberher), who acts as her personal investment banker, and the seemingly more ordinary Peter (Jacob Tremblay). When Henry suspects that the girl next door is being harmed by her stepfather, the town’s police commissioner, he draws Susan into a rescue plan.

“I loved how it had a foot in many different worlds,” Ms. Watts said. “One minute it’s a sweet family movie. Then it moves into some complex dramatic moments, and then it takes some surprising twists into the suspense-thriller genre.”

The English-born, Australian-bred Ms. Watts, 48, lives in New York with Alexander, 9, and Samuel, 8, her sons with Liev Schreiber, from whom she publicly separated in September. In an interview at a hotel in Midtown, she spoke about two other big projects: the return of “Twin Peaks,” Sundays on Showtime; and the psychosexual thriller series “Gypsy,” debuting June 30 on Netflix. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

What real-life mothering skills did you draw on to play Susan?

How far you’ll go to protect your own kids.

You previously acted with Jacob in “Shut In” and with Jaeden in “St. Vincent.” Did that bond make it easier to play their mother?

Yeah, which is great because how do you create that instant chemistry, especially with kids? You want the kids to jump up on you, or you want to be able to scruff up their hair or kick them on the butt. That’s the nuance you need to create a reality.

As a celebrity, it must be an enormous task to protect your own children, especially going through a public separation.

I don’t want to get into it too personally. But we’re doing the best we can in a tricky situation, and so far I feel really good about how we’ve dealt with it. The kids seem to be in a good place.

Do your sons watch your movies?

No, I don’t really see any advantage for them, and they only just watched “King Kong” a few months ago. I remember showing them the trailer [years earlier] and my littlest one getting completely freaked out. They just don’t want to see their parents under distress or in danger. Now they get it. They came to the set when I was shooting [“The Impossible”] in Thailand, and I had bruises and wounds, and I worried about them seeing me like that. But I [showed them how] you put on strawberry jam that looks like a bloody wound, and they started to understand.

In “Twin Peaks,” you’re playing the wife of a Dale Cooper look-alike. How was working with David Lynch again?

Fantastic. It’s been how long between drinks? Too long. “Mulholland Drive” is not quite 20 years old now. I managed to stay in touch with David. He doesn’t get out much, so you go to his house and have coffees and watch him smoke, and he’s always talking about ideas. There was a moment where it didn’t look like [being in “Twin Peaks”] was logistically possible, and I was stalling. And David rang me up and said: “Are you going to do this or not? Come on.” And I was like, I can’t not do this. I have to do it just to be in his magical, brilliant world again.

In “Gypsy,” you’re playing a cognitive behavioral therapist who gets a little too involved in her patients’ lives.

She’s a well-intentioned woman, but she’s at a point in her life where things are feeling a little stale. And she’s feeling that with her patients as well — like they’re not getting it, and she really wants to help them. Then, before you know it, her curiosity gets the better of her, and she’s in this whole rabbit hole. She’s neglected a side of her past that was a little bit wilder in order to live this life with more structure. So she goes off in the wrong direction.

What’s the moral of the story?

It’s a cautionary tale. People often fantasize about things like, who would I have been if I lived this life, or what haven’t I done, and how could I reinvent myself? You don’t have to do that when you watch a TV show. [Laughs] You get to see someone else get into all kinds of trouble for you.

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